Britain is failing to harness the power of sport to divert young people from a life of anti-social behaviour and crime, according to a landmark new report from a major think-tank published this week (May 24, 2011). Read more...

CPD is the mark of a Professional, and IMSPA in partnership with the Regional Management Boards (RMB's) have been working hard to put together a comprehensive and contemporary package of CPD events. Read more...

Seb Coe current Chairman of the London Organising Commitee of the Olympic games will team up with Britain's best known diver, Tom Daley to officially open SportPark at Loughborough University. Read more...

For the past 5 years, ISRM and IQL have run a competition to test the UK's Lifeguards based on 3 elements, timed swim, CPR and theory. Entries are coming in thick and fast click through to see who's winning. Read more...

ISRM and ISPAL merged to form a new organisation, The Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (IMSPA), a single professional body for this sector in the UK. Their website offers information and resources including news, qualifications, training and events and a jobs/careers section. There is also a comprehensive online shop selling publications, posters for health and fitness suites as well as swimming pool areas, information notices, management information and training DVDs.

The department will hold a Family Fishing Fair on Saturday, June 4, from 9 a.m. to noon at Shield’s Lake in Byrd Park. The event will be free and open to anyone five years old and older. No fishing license is required because it’s Virginia’s annual Free Fishing Weekend. Local fishing experts will be on hand to teach basic freshwater catch-and-release fishing.If you plan to attend, the department

The Landing, the concession at Byrd Park, will open for business at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 28. It's located at Byrd Park’s Fountain Lake and offers pedal boat rides and food service throughout the summer months. It will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. until dusk.Pedal boat rides will cost $12 for 30 minutes, and food service will include hot dogs, hamburgers, barbeque, a wide variety of

The City of Richmond will hold its annual Memorial Day Program at 4 p.m. on Monday, May 30, at the Carillon in Byrd Park, 1300 Blanton Avenue.This event is free to the public and open to all who wish to honor those who have served Virginia and the nation. The program will include a selection of patriotic music, presentation of a memorial wreath, and a concert on the Carillon bells by city

Children in the department's After School Program revealed yesterday that they raised $1,125 to help build playgrounds for children in Haiti and Afghanistan. The children made the announcement after sliding down a sliding board at the George Mason Elementary School Playground.Each year, children in the program select a charity to support that helps other children and their families somewhere in

WHO: Paul Manning, Chief Service Officer, City of RichmondDavid B. Jones, Board Member, International Childhood Enrichment Program, and Associate Professor in Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Southern MaineCharles Hester, After School Program Coordinator; Parks, Recreation & Community Facilities, City of RichmondChildren in the Richmond Parks, Recreation & Community Facilities’ After

“We have opened IQS Travel because we want to make a difference for the people who find it hard to book their holidays due to an illness, disability or limited mobility. We have dedicated, experienced advisors who have the knowledge to go the “extra mile.”

Carol Goff, chairperson of Ideal For All

A brand new local travel agency, IQS Travel, opened its doors recently to offer a much needed service for people who have specific accessible needs when going on holiday. The service was officially launched by the Patron of Ideal For All, Dave Heeley (pictured above). The IQS Travel agency will not only provide a specific focus when booking holidays for disabled people, but will also be available to the wider community.

Customers can make a difference by booking their holiday with IQS travel agency, as the service is being run as a social enterprise; any profits made will be reinvested for the benefit of disadvantaged communities of Sandwell and beyond. Find out more

On Thursday, May 12, you can help send a Richmond child to summer camp, as well as hear some of your favorite music, by contributing to the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities’ annual Send-a-Kid-to-Camp Radiothon. Residents are asked to call (804) 521-8400 any time between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on May 12 to make a donation to the Send-a-Kid-to-Camp Campaign, and for any

You don’t know this but last nightI lay awake and watched you sleeping,Heard the soft scrape and wheeze of your breathing,Felt the warmth of your body and thought:

‘What on earth are you doing here?I’m not married to you, Audrey Hepburn,And I’ve never eaten breakfastOutside a downtown jewellery shop.’

Politely, Miss Golightly tossed and turnedTill the milkman’s electric go-cart squeaked.It was never meant to be. She spurnedMy offer of staying the rest of the week.

Which, all things considered, is just as well.Manhattan fantasies are nothing but rotFor drunken fools who are over the hillAnd believe there’s more than they’ve got.

There isn’t. Love simply changes its hue.Sometimes, it pulses a deep, vibrant red,Sometimes it’s insufferably blue.Whatever. The amorous film stars are dead.

Which means, my love, there’s more to lifeThan what passes for it on the telly.Audrey Hepburn would never be my wifeOr do breakfast at Southville Deli.

Before the second summer of love

Looking into the face of the wrinkled hippyIs like staring at a leathery elephant’s arse.In fact the elephant’s arseWould smell much nicer and talk more sense.But hey, man, we’re at Glastonbury and allThe blessed children of the sun/moon/earth/starsHave abandoned their two-tone semis for Pilton’s New Jerusalem.

The scrotum-cheeked one gabs on and onWhile the Cure grind out some dodgy gothic blues.“The 60s,” he says, “were mind expansion.Festivals. Peace. Free love.” And I’m thinking,Back in the 60s, mate, the only free loveIn this field was bovine rape: the bullEntertaining half the diary herd.Hippies are just ramblers in disguise,Dumbly sentimental for the countryside.

This one claims Jerry Garcia is Jesus and nobodyWill ever be as good as Hawkwind or Pink Floyd.Next thing you know he’s recreating Hendrix riffsWith a strand of pubic hair and an empty flagon of cider.Something about his I-ching-rebirthed-tantric beingMakes me want to puke. Maybe it’s his rainbow flares.His nasal whine. Or the aura of patchouliLike the stench of old socks left overnightIn a bucket of dead carnations.

He believes I’m a cynic but my heart is good.He’s more naïve than I thought.“Vietnam,” he says, “now that gave us a cause.”As if he was glad that war broke outSo he could blather into the small hours.He thinks he’s revolutionary:He makes Norman Tebbit sound like Karl Marx.

There was no great flowering of love in the 60s,Just the contraceptive pill and a lotOf teenagers up in their roomsWith photos of Twiggy and a large box of Kleenex:Tofu-guzzling guru-hunters shafting sheepAt bongo communes in deepest Wales.

My Glastonbury relic had a mystic experienceSomewhere outside Carmarthen. GandalfAnd Bilbo took him on a trip – but the randy hobbitStarted feeling up the elves and the wizard went off in a huff.

The relic claims he knows the secrets of the cosmosBefore asking me the bus times back to Bristol.He didn’t want to leave his car all weekend in a field.“It’s new. It’s the firm’s. You know how it is.”

Oh, yes, I know how it is. Nostalgia for someone he never wasOozes from him like ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ oozedFrom every hi-fi back in 1971. And whatever idealsHe didn’t have are deader than Elvis Presley.I wish I could think of something wittyBut instead resort to “Fucking hypocrite hippy!”And the crystal-wearing peace-loving crowdOblige by beating me to a pulp.

Life is shit

When your fag gets caught on your underlipAnd burns the tips of two fingers;When the cat’s had a crap in your favourite shoes;When the last place left to drink is full of suitsAnd kebabs just look like alien beings;When the taxi queue’s so long you won’t get a cabUntil this time tomorrow – and there’d be a bloodbathOn the streets of Yate, if only the population of YateWasn’t kicking the shit out of each other in Bristol;When you’ve finally made it home on footAnd woken the street by puking in your surprisingly resonant bin;When you’ve tried to regain equilibriumWith one last tin of Stella and David Bowie’s ‘Low’But found the lager’s flat and the CD’s scratched;When you’ve tumbled into bed and wishedYou’d never eaten those digestives;When you’re flat out but the room’s still spinning;When you’re alone and facing the prospect of a dawnSo dissonant it makes Swedish death metal sound tunefulAnd you’d pop your head beneath the pillow and screamIf your brain wasn’t rattling round your skull like a pinball;When the hangover has finally struck and the only thingOn telly are the Tweenies and the bodybagsComing home from Baghdad; it is tempting to admitThat life is shit and go out in search of what compensates for it:The almost-missed daisies like fireflies in the park,The perfect lover glimpsed in the corner of your eye,That conversation you had, that anecdote,A poem, a photo, a painting, a blinding shag,The insufferable persistence of beautyIn waterfalls, trees, clifftops and beaches,The insufferable simplicity of breathing.

Only, this isn’t the eighteenth century and Wordsworth is dead.This isn’t the Industrial Revolution.It’s the Post-Industrial Revolution.It’s the post-post-post-modern revolution:Bill Gates, Big Mac, Bush and Brown,‘I’m a Celebrity – get me out of here’,‘Shaun Of The Dead’, ‘Dawn Of The Dead’,and, in the dead of the dawn,there’s only one conclusion to draw:life is fabulously, beautifully, gloriously shitand you’ve got one choice:neck that Bloody Mary,deep breath, face it.